Grilled Portobello Mushrooms Stuffed with Sausage, Spinach, and Cheese

We LOVE grilled Portobello mushrooms so when I saw this recipe on Kayln's Kitchen I knew we had to try them, immediately!!

She adapted the recipe from Bobby Flay's Grill it and I mainly stuck with her version. This recipe makes 4 large mushrooms and could easily feed 4 people if used as a main dish. Jordan did eat two in one sitting - if that tells you how good they are!

Ingredients:
4 large Portobello mushrooms
12 oz. mild or hot Italian sausage (we used hot)
1-2 T olive oil (for brushing on mushrooms before grilling)
1 small onion, finely chopped
1 tsp. minced fresh garlic (I used chopped garlic from a jar as that is what I had on hand)
1/2 cup tomato sauce (I used spaghetti sauce I had open in the refrigerator)
Pinch red pepper flakes (this is not needed if you use hot Italian sausage)
8 oz. coarsely chopped spinach leaves (I only used 5 oz)
2 T chopped fresh basil
2 T chopped fresh parsley
1/2 cup grated mozzarella, plus 1/2 cup for sprinkling on top

The recipe called for olive oil to cook the sausage but I did not use any olive oil. The Italian sausage I used had plenty of its own grease to cook with so I skipped that step. If you are using a different type of sausage you may need to heat some oil to cook with. I had to buy sausage links - if you also have these make sure to take the sausage out of the casings before cooking. Crumble the sausage into the pan and cook for about 5-8 minutes - stirring and breaking the meat as it cooks.


As the sausage cooks, I chopped the spinach, basil and parsley. The basil and parsley were fresh from my herb garden. Let me tell you, it was wonderful to be able to go outside and just get what I needed to use!! I highly recommend that you plant a few herbs if you don’t have some already! Once the sausage is browned and cooked through, remove to a bowl.


You are going to sauté the onions in the same pan so if you need to; add more olive oil (I did not need to, as you can tell from the photo above). Sauté the onions until softened a bit, about 2 minutes. Add garlic and continue cooking for a few more minutes. Add Italian sausage back into pan along with the spaghetti sauce. Simmer for 3 minutes.

Preheat your grill – I use a low setting but our grill is very hot. The recipe calls for them to be cooked on high – use your best judgment. You know how your grill cooks!

While the sausage/sauce mixture is simmering start cleaning your mushrooms. Wash them, and then remove the stems from the caps. Scrape out the brown gills from inside of the mushrooms so you’ll have more room to stuff. Be very careful doing this as you don’t want to break the edges of the mushrooms. It’s okay if you do - you can tell from the photo below I found out the hard way.


Add chopped spinach and let it wilt and cook down, stirring so it's evenly distributed in the sausage/onion mixture. Turn off heat and stir in 1/2 cup mozzarella, chopped basil and parsley.

Brush the insides of the mushrooms with olive oil. Put mushrooms on the grill, inside facing down, and cook for 3-4 minutes, until mushroom is slightly browned and starting to soften.

Remove mushrooms from the grill. Brush the outsides of the mushrooms with olive oil. (I brushed both sides before putting them face down and the back of the mushrooms were dried out and I had to oil them again before I stuffed them.) Carefully stuff the inside of each mushroom with sausage/spinach/cheese mixture, and then top each mushroom with mozzarella.

Place mushrooms back on grill with the stuffing face up. Cover grill and cook 3-5 minutes depending on how hot your grill is. Check to make sure the bottoms do not burn - remove from grill when the cheese has melted.

We had our mushrooms with a side salad and it was a great meal! I'm already craving them again!